


small favors

by penhaligon



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, HZD Secret Santa 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-22 05:05:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17053688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penhaligon/pseuds/penhaligon
Summary: A big friend takes a liking to Aloy.





	small favors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cakelocked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakelocked/gifts).



> "Request 1: Aloy having an overridden machine sticking around and following her (A Really Big Machine) and Aloy's and her friends' reactions to it. Pure crack and fluff pls."

The Sun Furrows Hunting Grounds are shadowed and cool. The sun is gone now, only a whisper of fast fading red on the western horizon, and the blue lights of the thunderjaw, the ravagers, and the watchers stand out in stark comparison to their bodies. But between the burning braziers and the emergent, near full moon, there is just enough light to observe the patterns of the machines below.

Aloy isn't sure how long she crouches there, watching. It had been evening when she'd arrived. Her Focus is active and ready to begin counting down as soon as she drops to the grounds below, but she doesn't pay attention to the time. Her concentration is riveted on the machines.

All of the hunting grounds had been built around natural machine patrol routes, so that a never-ending supply of machines would always arrive to replace dead ones. The last trial had seen her and the ravagers killing the thunderjaw, and she'd had to wait until another thunderjaw took its place. The replacement patrols below, fresh from the forge of Cauldron ZETA nearby, so to speak. She only has two minutes and forty seconds to get this last Blazing Sun mark, and if she fails and has to fight her way to safety, she may not get another chance until the machines here replenish themselves once more.

The thought of failing makes her itch. She's only wasting time here because she wants that war bow, especially after a fight like the one at Maker's End.

So Aloy waits until she's sure, and when the ravagers are too far to see her, when the watchers are turned away, when the thunderjaw is only just turning around to walk back towards her, she activates the countdown and jumps.

She doesn't take the ropes down. She jumps straight forward onto the rock below and rolls when she lands, swallowing a grunt of pain. She moves between the patches of tall red grass that lead up to the thunderjaw's route, jumping again to bring her down to the level where the thunderjaw patrols. She hurries as quickly as she dares, and though the thunderjaw is aware of something up ahead, she's too fast and low for it to register.

She makes it to the farthest patch of grass just before the thunderjaw is close enough to see her, and she releases a breath slowly, quietly. The thunderjaw stalks forward, the ground shaking with its steps. It stops close, whirring with thought, then moves again. Its tail sweeps over Aloy's head as it turns, making the air shudder. A precise strike of that tail could take someone's head off, and in the moment before she moves, Aloy thinks about how the Carja do this for _fun_.

She creeps forward out of the grass a little too quickly in her haste, and maybe the thunderjaw hears, because it twitches, but it doesn't matter. Her spear finds its leg, and in a matter of seconds, the machine is hers.

After that, the world is a blur of fight, though Aloy doesn't do the heavy lifting. Two arrows get the attention of the ravagers, and Aloy busies herself with keeping the watchers from distracting her new friend, while the thunderjaw's discs whistle through the air and finish the trial with forty seconds to spare.

The sounds of battle bounce off the rocks of the hunting grounds as they fade, and Aloy takes a moment to catch her breath, unable to keep a grin from slipping out. She stops the countdown and dismisses the Focus field, and the ground trembles as the thunderjaw turns to find her. The deep-set columns of blue light that serve as its eyes are bright in the nighttime. Its insides whir and groan, and its head swings so close to Aloy that she takes an instinctive step back. But it only watches her placidly.

"Thanks," Aloy says a little breathlessly, her heart still pounding with the rush of battle and victory. She pats one of the thunderjaw's jutting mandibles, conscious of the fact that those alone are nearly as long as she is. Her fingers run over a blackened groove in the metal left by one of the ravager's cannons. This close to it, the constant hum of its machinery seems to vibrate under her skin.

The thunderjaw doesn't wander off to observe the area. It stays where it is and watches her unblinkingly, its great head swaying a little.

Huh. That's kind of weird.

Aloy shrugs, pats the thunderjaw's mandible again, and turns to go. At the foot of the mesa, she glances back. The machine is still watching her.

The override will wear off eventually. Aloy considers launching a few arrows to preemptively reset it, so that the Keeper has nothing to complain about, but she can't quite bring herself to do so when the thunderjaw is staring like that.

So Aloy shrugs again and climbs up the mesa. At the top, the Sun Furrows Keeper silently shakes his head and gives her the last of fifteen Blazing Sun marks.

* * *

A few days later, Aloy finds herself out under the hot sun with a small crow of onlookers following her - Lodge members, off-duty soldiers both Carja and Vanguard, and regular Meridian citizens. Aidaba had insisted that she get to witness Aloy use the Lodge war bow for the first time, and somehow it had spiraled from there. It doesn't help that Talanah draws just as much attention as Aloy does, nowadays.

"Don't they have anything better to do?" Aloy mutters.

Talanah smiles. She looks regal and at ease in the finery of a Sunhawk, as if the attention and stares behind her don't exist. She walks on Aloy's right, while Aidaba trails to the left, still admiring the war bow and only half paying attention to the conversation. The rest follow, indistinguishable talk buzzing on the hot air. "Consider it a send-off," Talanah says.

Aloy will be leaving the Sundom after this, making the trek up to the Longroam and the place that Sylens had called the Grave-Hoard. She'd already spent more time in the Sundom than she'd meant to, between detours to handle the Dervahl problem, the Hunter's Lodge business, and other little errands she'd found herself running for people who'd asked. She doesn't quite know why she keeps agreeing to them, but the prospect of leaving the Sundom is more of a downer than she'd ever thought it could be.

Maybe she's just stalling.

They leave by way of Meridian's main gate and take the north road that winds down from the mesa, passing the Shrine of Kings and heading for the river, where a herd of broadheads dwells. In the presence of civilians, Talanah doesn't want to engage with any worse machines, and even though the prospect of using a war bow like the Lodge's on such relatively harmless machines seems a bit overkill, Aloy agrees. There's already a nervous lilt to the murmur behind them when they reach the river, from those who live too high or too sheltered by the Sundom's waters to have seen much of machine battle in their lives.

Talanah motions for the crowd to wait close to the road, where the guards are and where the machines' limited visual range will not notice them, while Aidaba hands the bow back to Aloy. "Take good care of it," Aidaba says. She pulls a specialty quiver off of her back and hands it over as well. "These are on the house."

"Wow," Aloy says, admiring the dark wood and colorful fletching, of a fancy, decorative kind that she is absolutely not going to commit time to out in the wild. Her rougher work will have to do. She pulls a shock arrow out and watches the tip spark and glow. "Thanks."

"All I can give you now is encouragement," Aidaba says with a wink, and she tilts her head towards the crowd. "Make them jealous."

Aloy's mouth twists in a grin, and she attaches the new war bow quiver to her belt, leaving her old one with Aidaba for now. Talanah and Aidaba stand together as Aloy heads for the river. Here, where the waters are shallow, she ignores the road and the bridge and steps across the river instead, not caring that her boots get soaked. There is more room to maneuver on the bank than near the rocks that line the road, and she takes to the tall red grasses there, turning her Focus on to observe the herd.

There are four broadheads grazing quietly, and Aloy nocks the first shock arrow. The nearest broadhead collapses on the spot when the arrow hits, sliding a bit down the bank, and even Aloy is surprised at the immediacy of the damage. The other broadheads are alerted by the disturbance, but the collapsed machine is close enough that Aloy sneaks forward out of the grass and spears it without being seen. The broadhead shudders, and the light leaves it.

Aloy switches to a freeze arrow next and creeps to another, higher patch of tall grass. She'll take one out with that and save corruption arrows for the last two; the crowd will probably love a good machine versus machine fight to finish the demonstration off.

She readies the frost arrow, and a scream rises from the other side of the river.

Aloy's head snaps back to look, as a guard cries out, "Thunderjaw!"

She hears it now, the thumping of huge metallic claws on hard Sundom ground, and she launches herself back across the river, not caring that the broadheads alert to her presence. They won't cross the water, and there's a bigger machine to worry about, with too many civilians close by. Talanah is already pushing Aidaba back and readying her own bow, and she meets Aloy's gaze with a firm nod. They'd taken down Redmaw together; another thunderjaw is nothing.

"Let us handle it!" Talanah says to the guards, while motioning for the other hunters to come forward. "Keep those people safe!"

Aloy's eyes and Focus find the thunderjaw as the soldiers begin hurrying people back up the road and Talanah comes shoulder-to-shoulder with her. The thunderjaw is hurtling forward around the bend in the river, on the other bank, the broadhead side, palm trees crumpling under its approach. It's immediately apparent to Aloy that the machine's target is not the crowd. The thunderjaw's eyes aren't red either; they're blue, and the blue veins of Aloy's override glisten along its neck.

It takes Aloy a second to find her voice. "Wait!" she cries out, even as Talanah pulls an arrow back, and Talanah hesitates, her arm straining but still.

"That's..." Aloy says, and she tries to find the words for it, "... mine?"

Talanah's brows furrow. Her hands shake a little from the effort of holding the arrow ready, so she loosens her grip a little. Some part of Aloy that isn't utterly confused notes what a demonstration of trust it is, when a beast of a machine is bearing down so close. "Yours?"

"Yeah," is all Aloy is able to say, wonderingly, as the thunderjaw passes the bridge, ignoring them, and crashes into the broadhead herd.

It makes quick work of the three left standing, though they put up a valiant fight, and Aloy winces as she watches the last broadhead go down under the the thunderjaw's mighty, stomping claw. Satisfied, the thunderjaw spins around, its eyes seeking Aloy out, and Aloy tenses, but the thunderjaw only clambers more slowly across the river to bring its head level with Aloy. Talanah tenses as well, pulling the arrow tight for a moment, but she relaxes when the thunderjaw only resumes the placid staring it had left off at the Sun Furrows Hunting Grounds. As if waiting for something from Aloy.

Because Aloy recognizes it, recognizes the blackened groove along its mandible, and she shakes her head in mute disbelief. Her heart is still thumping hard, waiting for a battle. Absently, she turns her Focus off.

"Fire and spit," a Vanguard says somewhere behind them.

Talanah is staring wide-eyed at the thunderjaw, and she glances at Aloy. When Aloy doesn't say anything, Talanah turns the couple of Vanguard and Carja soldiers who stand halfway ready behind them, alongside the other hunters. "I thought I told you to protect the civilians."

The Vanguard who'd spoken shrugs. "Cap'n'd have our heads if we let anything happen to her," he says, nodding to Aloy. "Not that we're needed here, but still."

Finally, Aloy gives herself a shake. She reaches out to run her fingers over the groove in the thunderjaw's mandible, and the machine emits a low whir. "I've never had one follow me before," she says. She tears her eyes away to look at Talanah. "This one's from the hunting grounds in the Sun Furrows."

"Amazing," Aidaba says, creeping up behind the soldiers and hunters, who part to let her pass. She's the only civilian who'd come back within range of the thunderjaw, though Aloy can see the others still standing a distance up the road, watching. More tales to add to her wildly out of control reputation here, Aloy thinks with an internal sigh. "The one that helped you finish the final trial?"

Aloy nods.

"By the Sun," a Carja soldier says. "You truly are a machine tamer."

The thunderjaw huffs, a grinding metallic sound, and its head turns, seeking out blue glows in the distance, down the river and in the sunlit jungles beyond. But it doesn't rush to attack; it only watches for a few seconds, until it seems sure of something. Maybe that they aren't too close. Its head swings back to watch Aloy.

"They're kind of sweet when they aren't angry," Aidaba says.

 _Sweet_ is about the last word that Aloy would use to describe something so long that its tail stretches across to the other side of the river, hovering over the broadheads it destroyed.

Talanah snorts. She turns and makes a sweeping motion with her hand. "Alright, the demonstration is over," she says. "Get everyone back to the city."

The soldiers and hunters actually look put out, though not enough to argue with the Sunhawk. There's plenty of grumbling from the crowd, though, which Aloy can hear as the civilians are herded back up the road. One thing is clear to Aloy, even if the thunderjaw's behavior is not - the Carja and Oseram have a funny idea of self-preservation. _She_ knows that the override is unlikely to revert at any moment, if it hasn't already; they don't. But from the way complaints drift down the road, she'd think a child had gotten their toy taken away.

Soon, only Aloy, Talanah, Aidaba, and the usual road guards are left, and for a few moments, the only sound is the thunderjaw's whirring and the gurgling of the river.

"So what are you going to do with it?" Aidaba asks, as Talanah's eyes shift between Aloy and the thunderjaw in wary curiosity.

Aloy places her hands on her hips, trying to think now that her heart isn't pounding with battle readiness. The thunderjaw continues regarding her and the others, content. "I can't have _this_ following me around," Aloy says, struck by the sudden image of trying to go back to the Sacred Land with a thunderjaw in tow. That would go over _great_.

Talanah snorts again, which turns into a full-blown laugh, and Aloy gives her a rather indignant look. "Sorry," Talanah says. "It's just... most people have such mundane problems, and then there's you."

Aidaba covers her mouth to hide her own smile, and Aloy sighs, but huffs out an answering laugh. "Yeah, okay, my life is weird," she says, shaking her head and returning her gaze to the thunderjaw. She reaches out to pat its mandible again, and the thunderjaw gives a full-body shake in answer. The ground shakes too.

"It seems like a fine companion in battle," Talanah offers, because of course she would. "When you tame machines, do they ever go back to being Deranged?"

"Some do," Aloy says. "These usually do, but..." Not this one.

To get the ones that stay overridden to turn on her once more, she has to attack them. She'd tested that over and over, just to be sure. But if this override stays intact for whatever reason, it isn't the danger that she's worried about. It's the logistics. "If I attack the ones that don't go back, they'll get angry again. I'll just have to revert this one the same way, somewhere far away from here."

Aidaba offers a small pout and an, "Aw," and then she actually steps forward to pat the machine herself. The thunderjaw's attention fixes on her, which is enough to make all three of them stiffen, and to make Aloy's hand to creep back to her new war bow, but all it does is stare at Aidaba, as calm as ever. "See? He's a good boy."

"He?" Aloy asks.

"I'm sure he's killed before," Talanah says, a little more stern now.

Aidaba sighs. "You guys are no fun."

* * *

Aloy doesn't trust the thunderjaw _not_ to try to follow her into Meridian itself, so Talanah arranges to have the rest of Aloy's belongings delivered from the Lodge, where she'd stored them before heading out to try out the new bow. She'd already said her goodbyes to everyone else she'd met in and around the city, but still, it's not quite the departure she'd envisioned - waiting outside the city for a runner to bring her things, with a great big machine lounging near the river and making the poor boy quiver like a leaf in a storm.

The load is a bit more than Aloy is used to carrying lately, but she refuses to attach some of her bags to the thunderjaw itself. She'll override another mount after she's dealt with the situation, and so she finds herself walking as evening falls, crossing the river and taking the lower road that leads towards Lone Light and eventually branches up towards Dawn's Sentinel and the Sun-Steps, her destination before reaching the Longroam. The thunderjaw lumbers behind her, apparently intent on following now that it isn't boxed in by the stone formations of the hunting grounds, and Aloy wonders how the Sun Furrows Keeper reacted to his brand new thunderjaw wandering off. Probably not happily.

The road is just wide enough to accommodate the thunderjaw at its narrowest parts, though the screeching when its metal hide scrapes past narrow stone is so loud that Aloy wonders how it doesn't draw any other nearby machines. She takes branches of the road that let her avoid machines that she knows are ahead, like another thunderjaw that patrols too close for comfort, and they manage to make their way deeper into the eastern Sundom without incident. At one point, the thunderjaw makes as if to go after a sawtooth that lurks nearby, but with a sharp, "No!" from Aloy, that she says more out of instinct than from any belief that it will work, the thunderjaw gives up and keeps following her.

It makes her think, as they pass the former Gatelands bandit camp.

By the time they're far enough from Meridian for Aloy to be satisfied, night blankets the land, turning the yellow-orange of the Sundom to pale, shadowed red. She diverts before Lone Light, which glows blood red in the distance, into an area devoid of both people and machines. It's a wide terrace naturally enclosed by a higher levels to the west and by a drop to the east, dotted only by a few trees and patches of red grass. She can take the drop down and hurry to Lone Light when she enrages the thunderjaw again, and hopefully, it'll just choose this area to patrol after that. Or go back to Sun Furrows.

Aloy stops and turns and stares. The thunderjaw ambles to a stop and imitates her.

For a moment, they only gaze at each other. One of Aloy's hands creeps toward her new war bow, the other towards the new quiver on her belt, and the thunderjaw seems unbothered when she nocks an arrow.

Aloy holds the arrow steady at her side and hesitates, and the thunderjaw's unblinking columns of blue eyes regard her, serene. She'd never counted the points of light before. There are six on either side of its head, three to two columns, burning bright.

" _Ugh_ ," Aloy says.

* * *

It stays, to her surprise, and that's why she doesn't go back to shoot it. She tells it to stay several times, making her voice bark like Rost's had when she was a child getting in to everything she wasn't supposed to, and it stays when she reaches the road. She walks backwards down the road, watching until she can't anymore, until the elevation of the land and the turns of the road and the shadows of night obscure it from view, and then she waits. But the thunderjaw doesn't come barreling after her.

Maybe it likes the terrace. Maybe it can actually understand her and wants to listen. Maybe this is a bad idea.

She just doesn't feel like shooting at it.

When the moon is high in the sky, Aloy turns and heads up to Lone Light. On the winding road that leads up to the settlement, that's level with the terrace, she can just make out the blue of the thunderjaw's eyes, moving in the distance. It doesn't seem to be leaving. Maybe it _does_ like its new home.

Satisfied, Aloy finds Ilsadi, secures a place to sleep for the night, and puts the machine out of her mind.

* * *

It lasts until she's defending Free Heap from bandits, another detour in her never-ending roster of them that she doesn't actually mind. She's wielding Petra's "dispute settler" with devastating results, blasting Focus-lit bandits from atop Petra's workshop and trying not to enjoy it, when a screeching roar echoes among the rocks. She can't pinpoint where it's coming from until a thunderjaw - _her_ thunderjaw - comes barreling around the perimeter of Free Heap from the western side. She can see the blue override veins from here, and they gleam in the daylight as the thunderjaw circles beneath her and charges into the midst of the bandits, its thunderous steps tossing up dust.

The bandits' war cries are more like panicked screams now, and Aloy is mindful of where her ammo lands. She concentrates especially on the bandits turning their weapons on the thunderjaw, and when the battle is over, the collapse of the bridge and the Oseram cannon's booming still echoing in Aloy's ears, she sets the weapon down with a sigh that's both weary and elated.

"Tell your people that it's friendly," she tells Petra, trying to catch her breath. It feels like lightning is still snapping through her hair, and when she touches a braid, she hears a small pop and feels a tiny shock against her skin.

Petra's eyebrows arch. She peers over the edge of the roof, then shrugs and cups a hand around her mouth. "Anyone who hurts that thunderjaw answers to me!"

The thunderjaw makes no move to enter Free Heap, probably because it couldn't fit through the gate. When Aloy returns to the edge of the roof and looks down, the machine hovers near the wall, gazing up at her. Its eyes shine like twinkling stars in all the slowly settling dust, and Aloy shakes her head.

At her side, Petra's smile is growing. "Friend of yours?"

Aloy shrugs. "I guess so."

* * *

After the bodies have been cleared away, Aloy takes the thunderjaw to the junkyard and lets it clear away the last few scrappers that she hadn't bothered to take out, while she and Petra watch from atop one of the foundry's towers. Aloy would never admit it out loud, but she feels a stirring of something that might be akin to pride as even the normally unflappable Petra seems impressed. The woman nods to herself as the thunderjaw's lasers cut the scrappers down.

For a moment, Aloy had been worried that the narrow confines of the junkyard would put the thunderjaw at a disadvantage, but it isn't long before the machine comes lumbering back, its work done. When Aloy and Petra descend, they have to carefully maneuver it through the foundry grounds. It fits, but barely, and by the time Free Heap is visible again, some of the wood and metal of the foundry bears scratches from the thunderjaw's protruding parts.

"We'll have to widen the area a bit," Petra says, walking backwards to admire the machine as they head back towards the Heap. The ground trembles with every slow step the thunderjaw takes.

"It can stay?" Aloy asks.

"If it can keep out bandits and scrappers alike," Petra says with a chuckle, "it can sleep in my bed."

Aloy comes to a stop and so does Petra. The thunderjaw slows and stops as well, head swaying, and Aloy marches up to it. "You're going to stay here," she tells it, gesturing to the foundry, the junkyard, and the narrow confines of the rock formations and the paths they form. "And you're going to _stay_ this time. I appreciate your help, but you can't follow me everywhere."

The thunderjaw stares at her.

"You said you've never had one follow you before?" Petra asks.

Aloy shakes her head. There's got to be a reason, even if it's nothing that she has time to investigate right now. She lifts a finger to tap at her Focus. "I think it's following this. It must know when I'm fighting, if I use this." There certainly hadn't been time to get from Lone Light to Free Heap in the time since Aloy had angered the bandits who'd overtaken the foundry. But she'd had machine encounters long before she'd arrived at the Heap. The thunderjaw must have started following her trail then.

"You guard this place," Aloy tells it. "Keep other machines out, and if anyone comes from a direction that isn't that," she gestures to Free Heap, "chase them off." She doesn't know how much the thunderjaw understands, though it seems to have some grasp of what she wants. It probably doesn't get the nuance of her words, though, and she wonders if this is such a good idea after all, but no one seems bothered by the idea of a thunderjaw guarding their stuff.

She and Petra walk the perimeter of the foundry, the junkyard, and the Heap, guiding the thunderjaw around it all, and Aloy keeps repeating her commands as they do, explaining that the machine can have free rein to wander this area if it wants. At the very least, she's satisfied that the thunderjaw is familiar with Petra by the time they're done, and it seems like everyone in Free Heap comes forward for a look in the meantime. Aloy hopes that it gives the machine a chance to recognize them as Aloy's friends.

"Anyone else," she says, when they've finally returned to the area just outside the foundry, where the thunderjaw can freely roam, "run them off. But don't start killing unless there's a fight. Just... make a lot of noise."

The thunderjaw's head bobs and sways under its own weight, as it always does. It looks like a nod.

"Does it understand you?" Petra asks finally.

"Probably not," Aloy says. When Petra only laughs, Aloy gives her a curious look. She likes the atmosphere of this place a lot. In some ways, the people of Free Heap are even crazier than the Carja and their hunting grounds. Aloy is pretty sure that even the Carja might balk at the idea of a thunderjaw guarding their homes. But Petra looks entirely at ease. "Sure you're okay with this?" 

"'Course I am," Petra says. "He's already helped us out twice, hasn't he?" She reaches out to scratch at one of the thunderjaw's mandibles, and it rumbles.

"He?" Aloy asks.

"Besides, we can kill  _one_ thunderjaw if we need to," Petra says dismissively, and she gives the mandible a final pat before turning back towards the Heap. "C'mon. It's too late to get out on the road now," she says over her shoulder as she walks away. "Stay the night, and you can leave in the morning."

"Thanks," Aloy calls out, but she turns to the thunderjaw before following. She places a hand over the groove in its other mandible and runs her fingers all the way up to the joint where its head becomes it neck, walking the length of the head. The machine continues to rumble, a low, deep, pleasant sound. As if it's processing the touch.

Aloy regards it for a moment. "You don't want to be a he, do you?"

The thunderjaw's head sways at the sound of her voice, and its neck creaks as it turns, its eyes trying to find her.

Aloy walks back to the front of its head, patting the mandible again, as the blue eyes watch her calmly. "Thought so."

* * *

As it turns out, the thunderjaw doesn't find her again until much later, and Aloy figures after the fact that the natural boundaries of the Sundom also keep it from straying too far from the land that birthed it. She goes to the Grave-Hoard, cold and mountainous, and then crosses the world again to the opposite corner of the Sundom deep in the humid jungles, then to the northwest and the east and so on, moving too fast for most to follow, let alone a lumbering machine. She's wrapped up in her quest, in all she has to discover and fight, and so, after a while, the strange machine is rarely on her mind. But sometimes, after brief skirmishes with other machines, she wonders if the thunderjaw ever took to following her again.

It doesn't find her, though, not until she goes to check the ridge defenses outside of Meridian, on the eve of decisive battle, and finds plenty of familiar faces there, including her giant, friendly machine. Petra laughs at the look on Aloy's face and even more so when the thunderjaw lumbers forward to greet Aloy. For a second, Aloy worries that it's going to run her over, but it manages to stop its mad dash up the incline, and its head looms over Aloy, swaying. There's a deep whir in its insides.

"He's missed you," Petra says, appearing from underneath the thunderjaw's belly and grinning. "Left the Heap a few times, and I assumed he was looking for you. He always came back, though. Guess you were hard to find." She reaches high to pat the underside of the thunderjaw's mouth. "Thought he'd be useful for a fight."

Aloy doesn't know what to say to that. She strokes the mandible with the groove as the thunderjaw pulls back so that it can lower its head to look at her. "She."

"Hmm," Petra says, sliding out from under it. "My bad."

Aloy smiles. "It's nice to see you again."

"You know, I was wondering when the Oseram got good enough to tame machines," a familiar voice says behind Aloy, and she jumps and turns to find Vanasha close and Uthid not far behind. Vanasha's eyes are gleaming and interested as she takes the thunderjaw in with a sweep of her gaze. "Should have known it was yours."

There are others at the ridge too, and even though Marad had told her that many had come for her sake, Aloy is still more surprised and touched than she could ever say at the many people there to help. All of them want a look at her pet machine now that they know it's hers, and it takes a little while for Aloy to speak to them individually, but she doesn't leave until she does. She owes them that.

The thunderjaw hovers nearby on the riverbank as she moves around the ridge, and when she's done, Aloy approaches it and looks it directly in the eye. "Protect the ridge," she says, gripping the very tips of two of its mandibles for a moment. Her arms almost aren't wide enough to reach. "But try not to die, okay?"

Her heart clenches at the thought, and the thunderjaw rumbles. The vibration travels up Aloy's arms before she drops them.

"I think she stands a better chance of not dying than the rest of us," Vanasha's voice says nearby, close, and Aloy jumps again. She turns to find Vanasha at her side once more, looking faintly smug.

"No one's dying tomorrow," Aloy says. She doesn't know if she believes it or not, but it feels good to say it out loud.

"Except our enemies," Vanasha agrees, and she rubs the tip of one of the mandibles. The thunderjaw's columned eyes fix on her, and Vanasha seems unbothered. "This one was an enemy once, yes? And now it's a friend." She cocks her head to give Aloy a sideways glance. "Has anyone ever told you that you're very interesting, huntress?"

"Once or twice," Aloy answers. She gazes at the thunderjaw, at its calm swaying and the points of light that make up its eyes. She listens to its whirring and to the murmuring of the river beyond, and she finds herself speaking again without quite knowing why. Vanasha is just that good, probably. "The machines I override, they don't stay that way if I attack them. I almost shot this one to get it to stop following me. But I didn't. Don't know why, I just... couldn't."

Vanasha runs a hand up the mandible closest to her, trailing her fingers delicately along its edge. "This is how they're supposed to be," she murmurs. "I was young, but I remember enough." She laughs softly, bitterly. "The last king thought he could fix it with blood."

Aloy nods. She doesn't have to say more, but she does. "The Derangement started right around the time I was born," she says. "Maybe I could tell you about it, one day." She hesitates, then adds, "You know, a secret or two."

Vanasha smiles, and though it's directed at the thunderjaw, Aloy feels its hidden warmth. "I look forward to that."

* * *

When Aloy awakens for the second time the next day, it's under the shadow of a machine. She moves slowly, groggily, hands creeping for her weapons as her heart pounds with panic, before she recognizes the curves and lines of a thunderjaw. The rushing of her blood calms somewhat, but she can still hear the sounds of battle and worse beyond the protective dome of the thunderjaw's body. She can hear screams and smell fire, and she knows, without needing to see, that HADES's army found its way to the Spire. She remembers the Deathbringer and the red-wreathed object it dragged.

"Let me up," she mumbles, lifting a hand to tap at the underside of her thunderjaw. "I'm okay."

The thunderjaw moves carefully, and she hears a voice calling her name as pale, cloud-covered light greets her eyes. Teb's hands find her shoulder and arm as thunderjaw claws dig into the dirt around them, and she lets him help her up. The thunderjaw curls in close, crouched and shielding them with the curve of its body, and Teb eyes it warily before returning his gaze to Aloy.

"By All-Mother," he says. "I thought you'd been killed, but your machine wouldn't let anyone near you, so I had hope..." He lets out a shaky breath.

"The others...?" Aloy asks. The air is hazy, tinted with the shadow of the ridge that towers above them, and the thunderjaw blocks half her view. She can't tell.

Teb's hands fall as she pulls away. "Wounded, but alive, mostly. The machines blasted through, then kept going." He looks sick. "They marched on the Spire, dragging that... thing with them."

Aloy's shaking hand reaches out to pat his shoulder. Her vision narrows, taking in what she can see of Meridian Village, mentally tracing the fastest path to the Spire. "Take care of the others, Teb. I've... got to go." Her hands find the thunderjaw's neck next, patting its lower parts blindly. It rumbles. "Stay with them. Keep them safe."

But Teb catches her arm again as she moves, holding her back. "It's a bloodbath out there," he says urgently, and Aloy can see it. The village is burning. Teb looks up at the thunderjaw that crouches low and close beside them. "We'll be fine here. Don't go alone."

Aloy looks at him, then at the machine. She moves slowly, turning so that she can face the thunderjaw directly, then looks back at the village and the checkered patterns of smoke and fire. The smells on the wind are awful, and she swallows.

She nods to Teb, then faces the thunderjaw again. "Get me through."

The thunderjaw rises and straightens, towering above them now, its claws kneading the dirt in rhythmic movements that cast dust into the air. It turns its head towards the village, and a metallic groan ripples through its insides, digging into Aloy's ears.

They get through, and at the foot of the Alight, Aloy leaves the thunderjaw behind. It can't follow her up, but she knows that it watches her until it can't anymore.

* * *

It's still waiting for her there later, when they've won, and the long process of clean-up and recovery begins. They're climbing down and running to get more medical supplies to bring up to the wounded on top of the Alight, and to get supplies for temporary wooden walkways to be constructed in places where the path up to the Spire has been destroyed. It's a bit of a shock for some when a thunderjaw appears to block the path at the bottom of the mesa and barrel straight for Aloy.

"Whoa!" Aloy says, to the thunderjaw and to the Vanguard soldiers and Nora braves who immediately brandish weapons with tired yells. She hurries forward ahead of them. "Whoa! It's okay! It's mine!"

The thunderjaw slows to a thumping, ground-shaking halt before her, and its tail sways with the effort, bending a nearby palm tree.

"Well, shit," Erend says, letting his weapon fall, "my men weren't kidding."

The thunderjaw's head swings so close to Aloy that the displacement of air stirs her hair, and she rears back a little and pats the side of its jaw. Everyone behind her is hanging back, watching from the safety of the Alight's towering shadow, and she glances over her shoulder. She catches Varl's eye, and he shakes his head and steps forward, breaking the stillness.

"Strange times," he says with half a grin, and for a moment, she's taken back to the beginning of it all, remembering a ride through the Embrace gate on a strider.

The rest of the runners move forward as well, most of them making a wide circle around the thunderjaw as they pass, but Erend and Varl step closer. Aloy leaves a hand resting against the thunderjaw's mandible, against its familiar groove, as she faces them. "About that relay..." she says.

Erend is already nodding, eyeing the thunderjaw up and down. "Yeah, I was thinking the same," he says. "What's this thing's load-bearing capabilities?"

* * *

It's how her thunderjaw ends up carrying supplies and moving rubble that day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Aloy finds herself running all over what's left of Meridian Village and the surrounding area with her thunderjaw in tow, and it's another thing that makes her the talk of Meridian, alongside everything else. But she doesn't begrudge anyone for it this time. If exclaiming over the red-haired Nora and her pet thunderjaw is a welcome distraction from the destruction, then she can put up with it for a while.

At one point, she considers overriding other machines to help, but things are so chaotic for a while, and people so on edge, that she decides against it. It seems to make people feel better when she's with the thunderjaw, as if her magic might somehow evaporate without her presence, so she settles for the one, which is manageable.

She spends a lot of time with the Vanguard at first, who lead the effort to clear the rubble enough to make things smoother and find injured and dead. At the end of the first day, they've managed to clear a huge section of the village, helped along by the thunderjaw's ability to drag an enormous amount of weight with the right rigging. It had only taken Petra an hour to throw something together that got the job done, and Aloy inspects it closely in the fading evening light. She's been checking her thunderjaw obsessively after every big haul, but neither it nor the rigging seems worse for wear.

She's still running a hand over its sides when another hand taps her shoulder. She almost goes for her the lance on her back, before she realizes that it's not an enemy.

"Hey," Erend says, hands raised in a gesture of peace when she turns to see who it is, her fingers wrapped around the lance and ready to rip it out of its sling. "You should take a break."

Aloy lets go of the lance and waves at the wreckage all around. The motion nearly upsets her balance. "We're not done."

"Yeah, and we won't be for days," Erend says, steadying her. "You just killed a Kestrel and some metal demon thing a few hours ago. You need to sleep. You're about to fall over."

"But," Aloy begins, then stops and wonders why she's arguing about it when evening is passing fast. People sleep when it gets dark. Right? That's normal.

"I think you're delirious," Erend says, somewhere between concern and laughter.

Aloy wonders if she said all of that out loud. "I'm fine," she says automatically, reaching for one of the straps they'd been using to haul things via thunderjaw, though she doesn't know why grasping it with shaking fingers demonstrates how fine she is, upon consideration.

Erend sighs. If anything, _he_ should get some sleep. He looks as exhausted as she feels. He looks up at the thunderjaw, which stands patiently crouched for Aloy's inspection. "Can you sit on her for me? Will that make her stop?"

The thunderjaw rumbles, like it knows that it's being addressed in a way that requires a response.

Aloy pats its side. "Do _not_ sit on anybody. And stay here."

Erend clasps her shoulder and gives her a gentle push, and Aloy doesn't fight it. They take darkened paths of dirt that now bear deep furrows where machine claws had passed, and there is still wreckage everywhere, no matter where Aloy looks. They'd gotten so much done already, and yet it hardly feels like a dent. What had she been doing all day? Guiding a machine? Erend would say that she'd killed their enemies, but that was before.

As if he knows, Erend speaks. "Thanks for being out here all day," he says. "Seeing you really put some morale back into everybody. But you shouldn't keep pushing like that. Can't do anything if you drop from exhaustion, you know?"

Aloy resists the urge to argue for the sake of it. He's right. She'd been pushing, and it had paid off, not just in what her machine could do, but in what the sight of her does for the people here, fortunately or unfortunately. But she can't keep it up, not if she wants to stay functional.

So she sighs. There are tents somewhere on the edge of the village, for clean-up crews and displaced residents and those too injured to be moved, and even though Aloy doesn't need a tent to fall asleep, even though she's slept under the open sky more times than she can count and she kind of wants to go back and curl up under her thunderjaw, she lets Erend steer her to the tents for his own peace of mind.

* * *

On the second day, the people have something to talk about that isn't Aloy and her big machine. Their king spends the day among them, and it means that Aloy can move throughout the tents and the wreckage without someone asking for her blessing or attention every few seconds. They're asking Avad now, and so Aloy doesn't actually see him until late afternoon. It's only because he asks, for the same reason that everyone else does - to see her thunderjaw.

It's pretense, of course, to talk without fanfare, because the presence of the thunderjaw still keeps most at a safe distance, but Avad seems interested in it nonetheless. They stand at a quieter end of the lake, and he looks the machine over, while the Vanguards nearby appear to be having quiet fits, narrowly held back by orders. "Erend thought his men might have been drunk, when they said a thunderjaw came all the way from Sun Furrows and fought broadheads for you," Avad says. "But Talanah swore by it."

"Before that, I wouldn't have believed it either," Aloy says. She rubs the underside of the machine's jaw, and Avad hesitates only a moment before imitating the motion, much to the visible chagrin of the guards in the distance. Aloy isn't really sure if the thunderjaw likes the contact or not, but it seems to be processing intently every time someone touches it. It's droning again, a peaceful hum. "She's... an odd one."

Avad laughs quietly and studies the thunderjaw's great head, though his attention seems to be drifting elsewhere. It doesn't take him long to speak again. "I wanted to thank you," he says. "Personally, not formally. For, well... for everything. The list has gotten very long. For killing Helis, first of all."

Aloy glances at him across the length of the mandible. "I thought you were all about rehabilitation."

"Oh, no," Avad says, and his face is dark. "Not for someone like that. His chances were spent."

Aloy absorbs that, the fact that spent chances exist in Avad's much kinder Sundom. She doesn't ask how; she's already heard a great deal about what Helis was capable of, during and after the Red Raids. "He killed someone important to me," she says. "So I had to be the one to kill him."

Avad nods. He isn't quite looking at her, but his voice is soft. "I understand." His attention returns to the thunderjaw, and he doesn't say anything further.

Aloy doesn't either. There's a lot she could say or ask, but it isn't her city that's hurting.

Avad brushes his fingers against the thunderjaw's mandible, and the machine's head shifts a little. Its insides hum continuously, and Avad rests a palm against the metal to feel it. "My father destroyed so much trying to achieve this," he says finally, quietly.

The last king thought he could fix it with blood, Vanasha had said. Aloy pulls Sylens's lance - her lance, now that he's gone and silent - off of her back and flips it to the side where she'd affixed the original override device she'd gotten from a Corruptor months ago. "This is what does it," she says. "I take control, and... it seems to make them the way they used to be, more or less." But her machines don't run, like she'd been told machines of decades past had, and she doesn't know if thunderjaws, or any machine born after the Derangement, had ever spent time calm. Still - this is how they're supposed to be, Vanasha had said, and it's true.

Avad stares down at the override device until Aloy flips the lance and slips it into its sling on her back once more. "And I've heard about something up north, in the Cut," she continues. "Just rumors, but I think it might be connected to the machines. To everything." Something is making worse machines out in the Cut, and there are only a few possibilities that she can name. She has an idea or two. "Related or not, I'm going to find out what made the machines change, and I'm going to put a stop to it."

Not just that. All of it. Whoever damaged Zero Dawn so badly, she's coming for them next.

Avad is still, contemplative, and then his mouth twitches in a brief smile. He turns back to the thunderjaw, whose head shifts once more at the sound of Aloy's voice. It moves so that it can look at them, its body adjusting and making the ground quiver, and its columned blue eyes regard them solemnly.

"Like I said," Avad murmurs, "thank you."

* * *

After three full days, the Nora are ready to move out, impatient to return to their homeland and ill at ease outside of it. Some of the wounded are capable of travel, and Avad promises that the rest will be cared for until they are well enough to be sent on their way. Aloy finds Varl before they leave, as afternoon dips into evening and paints the Nora's camp on the lakeside in shadows. It's easy to talk in the growing dark at the water's edge, when the others are bustling with preparations for travel and when the thunderjaw looms behind them, around which everyone else makes a wide berth.

"When will you come back?" Varl asks. They stand in the shadow of the thunderjaw's side. It's curled close, and its head hovers near Aloy, but Varl seems relaxed.

Aloy can tell that he's trying not to sound overeager. "I don't know," she says honestly. "Soon enough, I guess. I know there's a lot of work to do there." She can't ignore the devastation that the Nora experienced, even though she has no idea what she feels about the Sacred Land. But Rost had loved it, and so she'll go back, before she turns to other things that demand her attention. Like finding Elisabet's home. And chasing rumors north. "But I owe the people here, too."

Varl nods. "Of course." His eyes flick up to the thunderjaw. He isn't nervous, exactly, but there's a hesitation to him, like he isn't quire sure how to approach a subject. "Are you bringing that?"

Aloy can't quite bite back a grin. "Maybe." She shrugs. "It keeps following me." She doesn't think it could get past Daytower or Dawn's Sentinel without her, but she doesn't mention that.

Varl laughs. "It's been... useful here," he says, slow and thoughtful.

As if summoned, Sona's voice breaks into their shared space. "Do you think that would go over _well_?" 

They turn. Sona approaches without any fear of the thunderjaw, a pack slung over her shoulders, looking impatient and disapproving, and Varl sighs. "It was just a thought."

But Aloy sobers a bit at the memory of the attack upon the sacred mountain and the thunderjaw they'd all just barely managed to kill. "There are other machines that'll work just as well," she says, though she reaches out to give the thunderjaw's head a pat, like she could offend it with the suggestion.

Sona utters a, "Hmph," but doesn't disagree. She gazes at Aloy for a moment, as if appraising. "I'll tell the High Matriarchs that your return will be delayed."

Aloy nods her thanks. "Not by much," she says. She's already thinking of returning with the two most grievously injured Nora after they recover well enough to travel, just in case anyone tries to argue that they're tainted for waiting. That'll give her a few weeks here, more or less.

For a moment, it seems like Sona wants to offer some kind of farewell and isn't sure how to go about it. She settles for a single, direct nod, and her eyes travel up to the bulk of the thunderjaw behind Aloy and Varl, before finding Aloy again. "You did well to lead us to this victory," she says. "Perhaps your other talents  _would_ be useful."

Aloy keeps her face composed. "Thank you, War-Chief."

Sona nods again, then looks to Varl before heading back to the other Nora clustered together, stripping down the last of their camp. "When you're ready."

After she's far enough away, Aloy braves a look at Varl, and Varl shakes his head, raising his eyes to the heavens. "Congratulations," he says, and though his tone is sardonic, his shoulders shake with a laugh, "my mother likes you."

"She thought your idea was good," Aloy says, biting her lip.

"After you suggested it," Varl says, still laughing. "If the _Anointed_ says it's okay..."

And finally, they are able to laugh at the title, at the strangeness of it all. Aloy feels herself relax and promptly has to duck away when the thunderjaw's head turns inward at the sound of their muffled giggling. It only makes her laugh harder, and she knows that it's a release, that it's tension pouring out in a kind of humor that makes every little thing funny in order to make sense of things that aren't. It feels good, though, and she smiles when Varl regards the thunderjaw again, rather admiringly.

"I suppose we'll have a lot to talk about when you get back," Varl says a little cautiously, gazing at the thunderjaw rather than her.

"I suppose we will," Aloy says, almost as cautious with her heart suddenly thumping hard in her chest.

Varl hesitates, then reaches a hand up to pat the lower part of the thunderjaw's neck.

It whirs in response, deep and resonant, a sound felt in the earth, in the air, in Aloy's skin.


End file.
